Is traveling the world on your bucket list? Or do you want to make your future career international? Are you passionate about different cultures and mastering new languages? If so, you’re in luck—the Marriott School has an entire center dedicated to helping students who feel just like you.
The Whitmore Global Management Center (GMC) helps students across campus internationalize their education and get experience abroad. We sat down with Jonathon Wood, the associate director of the GMC, to learn more about what the center offers students in the Tanner and beyond.
What is the GMC?
“The Global Management Center is tasked with the responsibility of making sure that the students and faculty have opportunities to internationalize in the Marriott School,” Wood explains. “At BYU we believe that all majors are international. You can’t be supply chain without being international. You really can’t be marketing without being international. So, we don’t have an international business degree, but instead we are reaching into all the different majors on campus.”
How can the GMC make my education more internationally focused?
The center offers the Global Management Certificate, the highest level of international business achievement in the Marriott School. It demonstrates to future employers that you’re serious about international business and you’ve honed the skills you need to succeed across the globe.
“Everyone that can speak a second language should get the certificate because it’s one more thing that you can put on your resume, and these days you’ve got to differentiate yourself,” Wood advises.
To receive the certificate students must take 6.0 credits of international business classes and 3.0 credits of a foreign language as well as demonstrate international business experience. For more information or to enroll click here.
What study abroad programs are offered?
To give you the chance to get real international experience while still in school, the GMC offers business study abroad programs in Asia, Europe, Africa, and beyond. The trips are ten days to six weeks long and include travel to many different countries and visits to global businesses for maximum cultural and educational experience. Scholarships are available to qualified students. For more information on study abroad programs or to apply, click here.
But that’s not the only opportunity to go abroad—the GMC also offers exchange programs. The center has partnerships with schools all over the world, bringing foreign students to BYU, and sending BYU students abroad to study at foreign universities. The exchange program gives students a full-immersion experience, enrolling them in classes for a semester in countries like Brazil, China, Europe, and South America. To learn more about the exchange programs click here.
What does CIBER mean?
The GMC is one of only seventeen centers in the country designated by the US Department of Education as a Center for International Business Education and Research. As a CIBER, the GMC works to increase and promote the nation’s capacity for international understanding and economic enterprise. Some of the resources offered at the center in order to accomplish this include student and faculty exchange programs, funding for original research, innovative global business curriculum design, and outreach to the business community.
Why get involved at the GMC?
Wood says it best: “All business is global. If you’re not training to be global or international in business you’re going to be left behind. The opportunity here is to internationalize yourself.”